On Monday, in the Spy, I wrote an op-ed urging Governor Hogan to mail ballots directly to all Maryland voters for the presidential election in November.
I thought that would be a no-brainer. After all, Hogan had mailed ballots to all voters in last month’s primary election.
Instead, for the general, the governor said he would open all polling places on election day and during and the early voting period. Rather than mailing voting actual ballots to voters, he said he would mail voters them applications for absentee ballots.
During a television appearance this week, Governor Hogan doubled down on his decision: “Tens of thousands of people showed up at polls that weren’t open (during the primary),” he said. “The handful of polls that were open were overcrowded, and it was suppressing people’s vote because they had to wait in line for four hours.
It is true that fewer polling places were open for the primary because, in the midst of the pandemic, heavy on-sight voting was unsafe for voters and poll workers.
But Hogan’s defense seems to me to miss the point. I’m all for the governor trying to open as many polling places as he can safely in November, though, realistically, there are likely to be many fewer open polling places than in a normal pre-pandemic election.
That’s because of a shortage of both polling places and poll workers. Fearing another coronavirus increase, many privately-owned polling places have already pulled out of the election, and, as of right now, one-third of poll worker slots are unfilled.
To me the real issue is that the governor making voting by mail harder than it was in the primary. Why add an extra step to the vote by mail process? Why make voters fill out extra forms and make election officials process them, as an additional step, before mail-in ballots can be cast?
The issue can’t be the integrity of the state’s voting lists. If the lists are good enough to mail all voters absentee ballot applications, they should be good enough to mail them ballots. Besides, I’d hope state election officials have worked diligently during the past six weeks to clean up errors in the voting lists they found during the primary.
With coronavirus cases rising again throughout the state, Hogan’s decision just doesn’t make sense – unless he wants to suppress the vote by forcing more Marylanders to risk their lives going to the polls by making it harder to vote by mail.
Al From is an adjunct professor at the Krieger School at Johns Hopkins University. He is founder of the Democratic Leadership Council and author of The New Democrats and the Return to Power, featured in the documentary film, Crashing the Party.
Ann Potts says
…,after all, he (Governor Hogans) is a Republican!
Chris Gordon says
Al, I’m a life long Democrat who nearly always agrees with you but I think you’re dead wrong on this. It’s easy to request a mail-in ballot and it eliminates a number of potential problems. All the necessary vetting is done when you request a ballot, not after you’ve submitted your ballot. It keeps ballots from going to people who have died or moved away. It blocks any argument the Trumpsters might try to make about voter fraud. I hope everyone requests a mail-in ballot. I would like to see it publicized more.